


Betwixt

by roaminromans



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, Lyrium, Red Templars, Redcliffe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roaminromans/pseuds/roaminromans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cruel glowing red, of the even crueler lyrium stains the grey stone just as easily as it stains his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betwixt

Everything is fine.

Red lyrium is growing from the walls, there is screaming so loud your skin crawls, everyone is missing. He’s alone. 

Everything was fine.

The Tevinter clutches his staff, his hand shaking. From the cold he tells himself or maybe it was because he was back at Redcliffe. 

He can’t feel his magic; he can’t feel anything as he stumbles down the cold stone hallways of the battered castle. The cruel glowing red, of the even crueler lyrium stains the grey stone just as easily as it stains his mind. 

When he pulled himself off the cold floor, there was emptiness in him. As if someone had taken a great chunk right from his center and he marveled how he was able to move with such a gaping hole. 

His steps up the stairs are fearful, his quick mind reeling too fast to make witty remarks. Dorian Pavus is undeniably afraid. 

“Inquisitor?” He whispers, his words travel through the silence as if they were searching for the man in question. The only response is a distant agonized scream. 

He laughs weakly, a distressed awkward sound that escapes him like a cough. He reaches a doorway after trekking up the solemn stairwells and the cold wood makes him shiver as he pushes the door open. The red lyrium that is growing through the very cracks of the stone is his light and his eyes adjust slowly to the dimmed light. 

A red Templar looks directly at him, the lyrium shards growing out of his skin pulse rhythmically. He is not fully consumed by his taint and in another time he might have been handsome, had he not been oppressing mages and joining the forces of evil that is. Dorian prepares himself to fight, trying to summon the magic that was a constant companion but now a distant memory. 

The Templar saw right through him, his eyes wide and confused by the door opening seemingly by itself. 

Dorian felt cold.

He stumbles forward, his hand outstretched and he reaches for the templar’s lyrium infected face. His hand feels no warmth from the man’s tainted skin; there is nothing but the unsettling feeling of stone. The man flinches and cries out, his cries of alarm attract other Templars and hurried words are exchanged but Dorian can’t understand them, the words he hears are foreign and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t understand. 

It was coming to him slowly, the realization was a sinking desperate feeling that carved through his chest, leaving only rot in its wake. This was future Redcliffe. 

The red lyrium growing out of everywhere should have been a warning sign; the red Templars running about were an even bigger one. But Dorian was slowing, his mind wasn’t working and he couldn’t grasp at grander pictures. 

He slid to his knees as the red Templars, spoke in hurried, foreign voices. His vision around the edges was blurring, the veil was thin around all this red lyrium and for the first time he could feel the Fade and the physical world wrestling for superiority.

It was then he realized he was stuck in between.

**Author's Note:**

> i sell dorian and dorian accessories 
> 
> thank you for reading and constructive criticism would be wonderful!


End file.
